The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.
Interpretation
Christianity's emphasis on inner transformation makes it uniquely supportive of government.
Thomas Jefferson suggests that Christianity holds a special place in relation to government because it promotes profound personal change within individuals. This change, which comes from the heart, is perceived as foundational for creating a just and moral society, thereby making Christianity a vital ally for governance.
In practice
In a speech about the role of faith in public life, one might say, 'As Thomas Jefferson remarked, Christianity is the best friend of government because it changes the heart.'
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
The function of ritual, as I understand it, is to give form to human life, not in the way of a mere surface arrangement, but in depth.
I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.
The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.
I can tell you that God is alive because I talked to him this morning.
Time expands and contracts. When it expands, it’s like pitch: it folds people in its arms and holds them forever in its embrace. It doesn’t let us go so easily. Sometimes you go back again to the place you’ve just come from, stop and close your eyes, and realize that not a second has passed, and time just leaves you there, stranded, in the darkness
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.
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